HP Microserver+XPEnology

Atari · 15 Jul 2015 at 09:48

Hi all,

This is going to be a silly question to some of you Xpenology veterans but I'm not sure which method to best proceed.

I've had my N54l running for a while with a 4TB and a 2TB drive. I've been gradually ripping my collection of DVD's and Blu-Ray's to it and I'm nearing the point where I'm going to need another drive as I'm about 80% full.

What I'd like to do is configure Xpenology in a way that I can add a second 4TB drive (for now) but in future can add bigger or smaller drives and have them act as one big 'pool' for my movies. I can see I can move the movies folder onto a different volume but once I've filled the 4TB drive, I'm not sure if I can span some films onto the second drive.

Would SHR be the best method for this? The drives will likely be of varying sizes as the years go by and the prices of storage drops. Can I keep them as single non SHR/non RAID volumes and make the folder with my films span across multiple drives?

Thanks.

Edit: I should add, the drives are currently in 'Basic' mode - not in SHR or a RAID array. Doing a bit of background reading, I should be putting them into an SHR or JBOD setup. Which would be preferred, and can I change from Basic to either option without wiping the drives?

darkblade · 22 Jul 2015 at 12:50

Just managed to create a 12 disk system using:-
3 x Microservers
1 x LSI MR SAS 9240-8i SAS/SATA 6g 8port RAID controller
1 x PSU extension/splitter cable
1 x molex power extension cable, plus 3 x 1-into-2 splitters

1 Microserver is used to host the XPEnology USB, 4 drives using the on-board SATA and the RAID card.
I've used two older Microservers (one with a faulty motherboard) effectively as drive enclosures, with the SAS cables running from from the Microservers into the RAID card. Bit fiddly to get the cables to run through
For power, I've used an in-line power splitter in the main Microserver to trigger the PSU into one of the "enclosure" cases and run a power extension from that case into the other enclosure case (don't fancy running all 12 drives off a single supply).

Had to disable the eSata and OD SATA ports to stop XPEnology picking those up first and ignoring 2 ports on the RAID card - otherwise no other tweaks were required.

Given the price of a 12 disk Synology system, I'm really pleased with this

The master server is located in the middle in the photo below

ANDARIAL · 22 Jul 2015 at 16:11

Hiya what size drives do you have connected to that sas card,and what make please?

Also i have 1x6TB red in my Gen 8 as Basic
I am currently installing 2x6TB reds as SHR
After the SHR has finished setting up and i have copied over all my files,do i just choose`Remove` for the 1x6TB as basic and then add it as a SHR third disk?
If i do this all my data that is on the new SHR disks will be safe yes?

darkblade · 22 Jul 2015 at 17:52

ANDARIAL said:
Hiya what size drives do you have connected to that sas card,and what make please?

I'm using Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB (HD204UI) Internal Hard Drives

ANDARIAL said:
Also i have 1x6TB red in my Gen 8 as Basic
I am currently installing 2x6TB reds as SHR
After the SHR has finished setting up and i have copied over all my files,do i just choose`Remove` for the 1x6TB as basic and then add it as a SHR third disk?
If i do this all my data that is on the new SHR disks will be safe yes?

Correct

ANDARIAL · 22 Jul 2015 at 17:58

Thank You
Scrubbing @80% atm.Taking forever lol

ci_newman · 24 Jul 2015 at 07:07

I really ought to get around to updating the software on mine, I haven't done it since building it a year ago

ANDARIAL · 28 Jul 2015 at 17:05

Just wasted the last 3 days scrubbing and trying to add another hdd

only to just find out that you can`t add a 4TB drive to 3X6TB shr array

Bugger

BlizzardX · 28 Jul 2015 at 20:02

ANDARIAL said:
Just wasted the last 3 days scrubbing and trying to add another hdd
only to just find out that you can`t add a 4TB drive to 3X6TB shr array
Bugger

Yeah its a bugger, I've always kept a 73GB drive attached in the array so that any new drive only has to be bigger than that, although it doesn't help if you add a bigger drive as the next drive must then be equal to or bigger than the last drive added.

tigerstyle · 28 Jul 2015 at 21:05

I setup Xpenology on a Microserver last night, works great, I went for a baremetal(?) X64 install, so no esxi, just straight usb install.

Now my query, apologies I am a frigging goof when it comes to networks. I want the NAS to be accessible from anywhere in the world, and users (who I give logins too) can write/erase files to their section of the NAS. I know nothing about this.
What do I need to run/do/open (ports etc) to achieve this?
I don't even know what synology call this feature?
I don't want them to login in and control the NAS, just a way they can transfer files?
stupidist post on the forum right?

Idiots guide anywhere?

ANDARIAL · 7 Aug 2015 at 16:31

Ordered a 4th 6TB to fill my Gen8/Xpenology

Can I add another 6TB using the onboard Sata in the future?or would I need a sata/sas card in there to do this?

dtokez · 18 Aug 2015 at 13:17

many people updated to 5.2 yet? I'm loathed to do it because 5.1 is working nicely and don't want to risk losing any data!

visibleman · 18 Aug 2015 at 17:12

dtokez said:
many people updated to 5.2 yet? I'm loathed to do it because 5.1 is working nicely and don't want to risk losing any data!

Did an upgrade (migrate) yesterday; seems to work and so far no issues (touch wood).
Obviously backup anything important prior to doing the update and you should be fine.

dtokez · 19 Aug 2015 at 18:01

what steps did you have to take bud? did you have to re-image the usb stick?

visibleman · 20 Aug 2015 at 13:45

Image the USB drive with .5592; follow the Web Wizard for a migrate and use the manual option to select the .5592 PAT file; update to 'update 2' via DSM when it reboots.

Took all of about 10 minutes.

dtokez · 20 Aug 2015 at 15:22

cheers mate. Whats the Web Wizard? Could I use a different USB stick to leave the old one in tact just incase?

visibleman · 20 Aug 2015 at 19:59

Web Wizard being - http://find.synology.com (saves having to use the Synology Assistant software).

You could use a different USB flash drive or image it but you'd still need to reinstall the previous version of DSM (via the PAT file) as DSM lives on the hard drives and not the boot drive (USB flash drive).

dtokez · 25 Aug 2015 at 12:06

Thanks mate. If I'm feeling brave enough I might try it later

where is the best place to get the usb image and the .5592 pat file?

visibleman · 25 Aug 2015 at 15:21

dtokez said:
Thanks mate. If I'm feeling brave enough I might try it later

where is the best place to get the usb image and the .5592 pat file?

PAT file can be downloaded from Synology; the USB image can be found on the forums - there's a dedicated 5592 thread which has info and links to files.

Amleto · 28 Aug 2015 at 17:12

I'm still on 5.1-5022. Can I go directly to recent versions, or do I have to update to the first 5.2 ? 5.2-5565 Update 1

BlizzardX · 30 Aug 2015 at 02:49

You'll have to upgrade the boot image to the latest version but then you're free to move directly to 5.2-5592.3